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235 posts categorized "AshleyMadison"

NEWS.COM.AU - July 31 - Ashley Madison launched its new-and-improved website in the US and Canada earlier this month and is now rolling out the PR offensive in Australia, one of its biggest markets, in an attempt to increase user numbers. There are 54M Ashley Madison accounts worldwide, and 12k Australians join the site every month. Aussies make 17k "unique connections", or matches, a month.

LAW.COM - July 20 - The settlement over Ashley Madison's data breach presents a unique conundrum: How do you find class members who don't want to be found? Those who pursued cases asked a federal judge in Missouri to allow their clients to use pseudonyms, but they weren't successful. Many of them gave fake email or street addresses and they might not want notices of the deal sent to their businesses or home addresses. As a result, lawyers came up with a plan to distribute notices to all online dating users through People and Sports Illustrated magazines and on banner ads, rather than emails or mailboxes. They also plan to advertise the agreement "in a prominent location" on the websites of the lawyers' firms. And the settlement will have its own website, although the URL won't make reference to Ashley Madison or any other information identifying it "as being related in any way to the substance of this litigation or purpose of ashleymadison.com." But not all the $11.2M will go to class members. The eight plaintiffs' law firms plan to seek ~30% of the $11.2M.

PR NEWSWIRE - July 14 - Ruby Corp and a proposed class of plaintiffs have reached a proposed settlement agreement resolving the class action lawsuits that were filed in July 2015 following a data breach of Ashley Madison. If the proposed settlement agreement is approved by the Court, ruby will contribute a total of $11.2M to a settlement fund, which will provide payments to settlement class members who submit valid claims for alleged losses resulting from the data breach. While ruby denies any wrongdoing, the parties have agreed to the proposed settlement in order to avoid the uncertainty, expense, and inconvenience associated with continued litigation.

NY POST - May 19 - Ashley Madison claims it has now signed up ~52.7M users since its founding 15 years ago. That's up ~50% from the 36M it claimed a little less than two years ago at the time of the cyberattack. The company also claims that the average monthly sign-up rate since the hack has been north of 750k, a huge number by the standards of most any dating app these days. Ashley Madison is making loud claims about a 1-to-1 ratio of signups by women and men in New York City. That ratio falls off a bit, to 1.4 men for every woman signing up across the rest of the country.

CNN - May 3 - Christi Gibson is a widow who lost her husband John not long after Ashley Madison's hackers released the names of 36M people. Her husband's name was on the list, which she learned the day she walked in and found him dead. Gibson and her two children represent the human impact of one of the most personal hacks in history. Nearly two years after their world was destroyed by the Ashley Madison hackers, Christi and her children say they've kept their vow of no more secrets. Despite the hack, Ashley Madison is still growing. They grew from 39M users in August 2015 to 50M users in January 2017, according to a company spokesperson.

YOUR TANGO - Apr 26 - Ashley Madison users are currently being blackmailed by a group of hackers who sent out this message: "On May 1, 2017, we are launching Cheaters Gallery, exposing those who cheat and destroy families. We will launch the site with a big email to all the friends and family of cheaters taken from Facebook, LinkedIn and other social sites. This will include you if do not pay ($500 in bitcoin) to opting out." But there is no "opting out". The AM data is out on the dark web, accessible by criminals, forever.

On Dec 14, 2016 the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement in the Ashley Madison (AM) case. As a result, AM has agreed that its liability was $8.75M. Because the company could not pay this sum it instead agreed to pay $1,657,000 as restitution, half going to the FTC and half to the states.

Why was there a case?In July 2015, hackers stole data of 36M AM's users and made the info public.

What was AM charged with?

Security issues

AM made up "trusted security award", displayed on its website

Use of fake female profiles

AM failed to delete users' digital trail after paying $19 for "the full delete" service.

How did the breach happen?AM employed a virtual private network to allow remote access to its systems. To access this, you needed a password and also a "shared secret," that was common for everyone. AM did not seem to have terminated passwords for employees or contractors after they left. At least one server was not protected by a password – thus allowing access to all servers. Many passwords and encryption codes were in plain text on the servers.

What data was stolen and released?

profile info

passwords, including security questions and answers

billing info and, in some cases, full credit card numbers

Effects of the AM data breachThe release of this information had a serious effect on the life of the AM members (divorces, some member were subject to extortion attempts, reportedly ~4 suicides).

What flaws did the FTC find in the AM security system?AM failed to:

have a written organizational information security policy

implement reasonable access controls

regularly monitor unsuccessful login attempts

secure remote access

revoke passwords for ex-employees of their service providers

restrict access to systems based on employee's job functions

deploy reasonable controls to identify, detect, and prevent the retention of passwords and encryption keys in clear text files

Does this case resolve all legal claims against AM?No. There have been a number of class actions filed against the company.

Why is AM being singled out instead of the hackers?AM may well contend that it is the victim here. But AM had pledged to keep the info of its members secure.

What will FTC do with the money?The FTC recovers money in fraud cases to return to victims. If the FTC does not give money back to victims the money goes to the U.S. Treasury. The FTC keeps none of it.

What does the order require AM to do?

no deceptive claims

no misrepresentation of the actual number of users it has

to have detailed and comprehensive security measures in place

to hire a third party to perform an initial security assessment and then to do so again every two years for twenty years, and submit those reports to the FTC

to keep appropriate records and file reports to the FTC demonstrating that it is complying with the order

Lessons for dating companies

When you operate in many states and countries you are subject to legal action in each of these

Data security is increasingly important

Don't lie about how many members you have

Don't use fake profiles or bots to urge people to sign up for paid memberships

Hiding key information in terms and conditions is not going to prevent legal action. Be sure people actually know key information

Make sure people know how long they are signing up for, and that they understand auto renewals

Make sure people know how to cancel and that doing so is not difficult

PR NEWSWIRE - Jan 6 - According to Ashley Madison, people are starting the New Year with more open-minded attitudes about sexuality. Ashley Madison says "hookup" searches increased ~24% over the past year, and continued to climb during the first week of January 2017. New Year searches for "open relationships" and "open marriage" also posted double digit surges, making those search terms ones to watch in 2017.

NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL - Jan 5 - AshleyMadison.com's parent company is hoping to knock out ~20 class actions filed over its 2015 data breach by invoking online arbitration agreements users signed when they subscribed to its matchmaking services. According to Ruby Corp, AM parents company, users agreed to arbitrate their disputes when they set up an account on AshleyMadison.com. Lawyers are due in court on Jan 6 to schedule oral arguments on the matter.

BLOOMBERG MARKETS - Dec 14 - AshleyMadison.com's owner agreed to pay a steeply discounted $1.65M settlement to resolve state and federal probes into a 2015 hack that exposed personal data of 37M users. The fine was reduced ~90% from $17.5M due to an "inability to pay". Company spokeswoman Debra Quinn declined to comment on why the company can't afford to pay the full settlement, despite reporting more users than it had at the time of the breach.

Q: What was your initial reaction when you were contacted for the CEO job?A: I did think that if it could be pulled off, it would be one of the great turnarounds of all time, and I wanted to be part of something that big. I had to get comfortable with it, and I had to make sure it was cool with my wife and with my family.

Q: How's that working out?A: We gained 7M members since July, taking our total over 49M. Our female sign-ups are up 20%.

Q: Can you describe the typical user?A: Our core users are in mid-30s and older, and they are educated with higher income.

Q: How do you monetize that base?A: It's free initially, but as you want to use more of the service, you purchase tokens (which start at $49), and you become a paying customer. (They spend ~$200 a year on the site.)

Q: Can you envision selling ads on the site?A: Big data's a very untapped opportunity for us—but we have to be very, very careful with how we do that. We would never share any data about a customer. In a year or two we might be there, but not right now.

Q: Where do you see your brands in the next few years?A: We need to continue to build up trust. We'll position the sites as nonjudgmental platforms, with the customer base to help you find whatever it is that you are looking for in a discreet and secure fashion.

BUSINESS INSIDER - Oct 26 - The parent company of Ashley Madison is trying to recover from a terrible year. Now rebranded as ruby Corp., the company formerly known as Avid Life Media is currently under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. Its new leadership team thinks it can turn all of that negativity around. It took nearly a year for the company to find a new CEO. In March 2016, a corporate headhunter reached out to Rob Segal, a marketer by trade. Since July, Ashley Madison has undergone a number of changes to win users back. One of the most notable is its pivot away from infidelity. Instead of the tagline "Life's short. Have an affair," it's website says simply: "Find your moment." "In the past it was very male-targeted," Segal said, adding that the rebrand was meant to make it more inclusive and "open-minded." The company also implemented Level 1 PCI Compliance for credit card processing, which means it has to undergo annual internal audits onsite and have its network scanned by an outside vendor. Female chat bots are also gone, according to the company.

MARKETINGWEEK - Sep 27 - Last summer, a team of hackers released the details of 35M members of Ashley Madison. Since then, Ashley Madison has added 5M new users, according to the company's new CEO Rob Segal. Their latest TV campaign focused on women. "The campaign made us grow our female users by 18%." It has replaced the provocative previous slogan, 'Life's short. Have an affair' to 'Find your moment'. The overarching goal is to make Ashley Madison a female-focused brand that prioritises open relationships rather than affairs.

CHANNEL 4 - Aug 31 - The premiere of a documentary "Sex, Lies And Cyber Attacks", investigating Ashley Madison, is airing on Channel4 tomorrow (Wednesday Aug 31st at 10pm GMT). AM was hacked last summer and the private details of its ~30M users were made public. When the hackers published internal company emails, there appeared to be a lot more going on behind the scenes.

AAP - Aug 23 - Avid Life Media (now RubyLife.com), AshleyMadison's parent company, has agreed to court-enforceable improvements in handling personal information. In the first ever joint Australian and Canadian privacy investigation, the commissioners investigated ALM's retention of personal info after profiles were deactivated. The report made a series of recommendations, all of which ALM has agreed to implement.

FORBES - July 19 - AshleyMadison has made a big marketing push. They changed up their leadership team, renamed parent company AvidLife Media to Ruby, and launched their first-ever TV ad with a new tagline. But there has not been any mentions about what the company had changed related to the 'Full Delete' service that costs $20. Has the company shut down that service? If it's just going to make superficial changes to the brand name and add new executives to the leadership team, that has nothing really to do with the data breach.

WALL STREET JOURNAL - July 12 - The renaming is "an important step in our journey to completely rebuild the company as a relevant, digital dating innovator that truly cares for our customers," said recently-named Ruby Chief Executive Rob Segal. They also plan to repositioning its Ashley Madison brand, dropping its tagline "Life is Short. Have an Affair" for "Find Your Moment." The brand's logo - a wedding ring icon and "hush" imagery—has been replaced by a "modern, discreet" wordmark. A new global digital campaign and TV advertising will take a more understated approach, with no dialogue and a cinematic feel.

CNNWIRE - July 9 - For years, AM threatened to send paperwork to users' homes if they disputed their bills — potentially revealing cheaters to their spouses. Avid Life Media has confirmed that these tactics were employed by AM until recently. "The company has a new team, new leadership and that kind of communication is firmly in the past," company representative Debra Quinn said. "That past practise stopped when our new CEO Rob Segal and new President James Millership took the helm." Avid Life Media said it is trying to turn itself around ever since a hack last year. "Over the next few months, our team will be working hard to introduce more discreet features, privacy safeguards and most important, to rebuild trust over the long-term," Quinn said.

WALL STREET JOURNAL - July 5 - Avid Life Media said Tuesday that it had appointed a new chief executive, Rob Segal, and President, James Millership, to lead the company as it tries to recover from its widespread data breach last year. They both joined Avid Life Media in April. Mr. Segal previously founded Segal Communications, which was later acquired by advertising firm Interpublic Group of Cos., while Mr. Millership worked as CFO and COO of online gaming platform WorldGaming, bought last year by entertainment company Cineplex. "The company is truly sorry for how people's lives and relationships may have been affected by the criminal theft of personal information," Mr. Segal said.